Since I got the DVDs (finally - yes,thank you for shipping via snail, amazon), I of course ripped that puppy open and popped in disc one to find this ep (because I am a Baal fangirl, yanno). I have some thoughts, brought on from listening to Martin Wood and Joe Mallozzi's commentary.

1. I have to take back a few of the bad things I've said about Mallozzi before, about pushing the 'ship of doom. Sam's line "sorta seeing someone" to Barrett was not, in fact, his, but put in by Rob Cooper, purely to fuck with the shippers. I still blame Mallozzi for taking out the AU!Sam/Cam kiss in "Ripple Effect" because he is a crazy Sam/Jack 'shipper though.

2. I am highly amused that it took Martin Wood some serious thinking to decide how to costume Baal in Dakara (thereby determining whether it was the one we had seen with Charlotte or another one). Hee. And being unable to fit into the costume because Cliff Simon is a well-muscled stick. Double hee.

3. Joe? The handwaving of the disappearance of a humungous office building was really not all that persuasive. People would notice the missing building/rubble.

4. And the reason I put in the disc? It seems that Baal's alias is Alex Jameson, CFO of Farrow-Marshal. The name isn't 100% clear on my computer screen, but I think that's what it says. The little blurb with the name is actually pretty hilarious, now that I can read it, "Alex Jameson, CFO of Farrow-Marshall, confirms meeting UN human rights commisssion officials". It's a great touch that the UN Human rights inspectors are on his ass... I am, however, not sure that this little blurb is really referring to Baal himself and not one of his toadies, since in his press conference he's talking about the merger of Hammell Industries. And would Baal really settle for being CFO? Probably not. If it said CEO then yeah, it'd be him, but CFO? I'm more dubious. I think I'm going to make up my own damn alias.

5. I'm sorry, no matter what they claim, Charlotte cannot be Athena at this point. I can buy that she's a Trust symbiote, but a named (old) Goa'uld? No frakking way -- Sam would know. She was within a few feet, and she should've been able to feel Athena's naquadah. So, no. Charlotte is a human functionary that Baal then threw to Athena for her support.

6. That really is a beautiful done scene of the reveal of all the clones. Wood says there's a whole handful of different shots put together there at the end, and it's seamless. Oh, and for anyone else who cares? The Baal sitting on the couch is, according to Martin Wood, the "real" one. FWIW. I never noticed that the Baal in the black polo shirt has his insignia embroidered on the shirt. Very cool.

7. I am sad that they never quite got around to explaining Baal's lack of The Voice. They started into it and then got distracted by the pretty Prometheus in space shot. I can guess, but I would've liked to know for sure.

And yeah, there are more problems with the cloning than there are the building, but I talked about that when the ep aired. This one was just the extra stuff from the commentary. And in it Joe's all "I thought we covered the disappearance of the building okay", and er, no. Regarding "athena", the PTB have long since forgotten/dropped Sam's Super Goa'uld sensing ability -- maybe the naquadah in her blood has slowly been leaching out so she doesn't have enough left to sense the Goa'uld anymore? Or, y'know, something like that. :)

Anyway to their credit both JM and Wood at least acknowledge that there are various problems with the logic and structure of the episode. And like I said, I'm a Baal fangrrl, so I'm willling to overlook a lot to enjoy it on that level.